Movses Pastry Accident

SUV barrels through bakery

Pastry shop had installed barriers after similar crash five years ago, but they arent enough.
By Zain Shauk
Published: Last Updated Tuesday, September 22, 2009 9:29 PM PDT
NORTHWEST GLENDALE — When a woman drove her car through the front of Movses Golden Pastry five years ago, owner Armen Nazarian thought he could protect his store by installing steel barriers in front of the property. He was wrong.

Early Tuesday, police said, a Burbank woman in the parking lot slammed on the gas pedal of her white Toyota 4Runner and barreled through the Glenoaks Boulevard corner bakery. She evaded a steel barrier and smashed through a storefront window, refrigerators, tables and chairs. No one was hurt, police said.

The SUV skidded to a halt on the property after crashing through a second window and nearly rumbling off an elevated outdoor seating area facing Glenoaks Boulevard.

I didnt really expect that this was going to happen again, said Nazarian, who snapped digital photos of the store as firefighters and police helped clear warped steel wreckage and shattered glass from around the vehicle.

Assortments of pastries and Armenian breads sat amid shards of glass in broken refrigerated displays that cost about $10,000 each. Displays had fallen from shelves along the back wall of the shop, Nazarian said.

The 2004 crash had cost about $30,000 to repair, but Tuesdays damage, combined with lost profits from days that Nazarian will have to close for repairs and health inspector visits will likely triple that total, he said.

He expected insurance to pick up the tab.

Glendale and Burbank firefighters used a rotary saw to clear a railing, allowing them to move the 4Runner off the elevated seating area and onto a flatbed tow truck. Employees at the 1755 W. Glenoaks Blvd. store said they feared for their lives upon hearing the SUV plow through the front of the shop.

I just heard a boom, the store started shaking, and I just saw the car is coming and I ran, said Lusine Petrosyan, a cashier who was working behind the store counter and looking the other direction when the crash occurred.

She darted to the stores back room with other workers.

The accident was not only avoidable, but could have been deadly, Glendale police Officer Larry Ballesteros said.

If somebody wouldve been standing at the counter ordering a tray of fruit tarts or something, he wouldve been killed, Ballesteros said.

No charges have been filed against the driver, Heranosh Baghomian, because the accident occurred on private property, Ballesteros said.

Nazarian, who owns the strip mall, was concerned not only that a similar incident had happened before, but that another property he owns, at the intersection of Chevy Chase Drive and Verdugo Road, has also been struck twice by out-of-control drivers, he said.

Im very confused, he said.

Similar accidents have happened in the last two years, with drivers ramming through a Starbucks on Foothill Boulevard and a Supercuts on Glendale Avenue, injuring bystanders in the process, Ballesteros said.

Its too common, he said.

Nazarian questioned whether enough Glendale drivers were safe enough to be on the roads, echoing concerns frequently raised by residents fed up with the citys notoriously accident-ridden streets.

The Department of Motor Vehicles is consistently working to improve drivers license testing standards, said spokeswoman Jan Mendoza, who insisted that most of Californias 26 million motorists are safe.

Weve got millions of drivers out there, she said. Its a numbers game for sure.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• women
• driver
• text
• and
• drive
• donuts
• pastrys
• glass
• broken
• sureal

[Codename067]

Two words: Insurance Fraud.

[TheWarriorProject]

The sad thing is, she was trying to flee the scene. The car enters at slow speed, crashed the window, and THEN suddenly the wheels are burning out at high speed? She was trying to flee.

[PrinceOfPersia876]

I'm in here right now watching it on my iPhone w/ my Uncle. The cashier tripped when the crash sound came out. She tripped. IT WAS THE SAME GIRL.

[monyrotary]

Funny lyric.........................­.....

[LynxSnowCat]

@cfrat52 funny , I was taught the opposite, to always use my right foot- never could actually do that reliably because of the parlysis.

[MrPyjamaTrousers]

You're all wrong. The owner from the pastry wanted to rebuild his shopfront and hired a bulldozer instead of a jeep.

[W3STCOAST3R]

Does insurance cover stupid?

[lol245525]

It looks like to me is the person accidentally stepped on the gas instead of pressing the break. It could happen to anyone.(or just me)

I did that once in a drive thru once but thankfully I didn't hit anything at all and was able to stop quick enough...close call ahahah

[cfrat52]

This is what happens when you drive with your left foot on the brake and the right one on the gas. When learning to drive, we're taught to push HARD with our RIGHT foot to stop... and in these cases, the right foot is on the GAS, not the brake. NEVER use your left foot to brake. If you do that while taking your driver's test, you'll fail immediately. The only way a vehicle can leave skid marks while moving forward is for both the brake and gas pedals being pushed at the same time.

[Codename067]

@SAMTRANCEFORCE - Insurance Fraud, Moron. How else do you want me to explain this?

Stop typing in all caps you sounds like an idiot.

[SAMTRANCEFORCE]

@Codename067  WHAT INSURANCE FRAUD YOU MORON.

[sarzamineiran]

Americans always want a drive thru